Join some of the most esteemed VR, AR, and MR experts out there for exclusive tech talks, live coding and demos while benefiting from 1-to-1 mentoring.

CTO's, Studios, Labs, Indie Devs will touch on defining and capturing the immersive experience through systems, engines and incredible applications for Virtual Reality, programming the magic of augmented and mixed realities inspecting platforms and deep-diving into Demos and SDKs. Dev tools at the ready!

50 speakers - 2 days - 3 tracks

AN INTERACTIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Talks

Series of 40-minute talks tailored for developers.

1-to-1 Sessions

Live video mentoring sessions with the chosen expert(s).

Forum

Q&A Forum where experts & attendees can share insights.

Replays

Access to the replay for 2 months after the conference.

Featured Speakers

Luciana Carvalho

Chief Evange, AVR & Racefully

Immersion of the self: does VR have the power to make us care more?

Paul Reynolds

Founder, Vertex Labs 3D

Mixed Reality 101

Connell Gauld

Founder & CTO, Zappar

Democratising AR/VR/MR creation with ZapWorks and ZapBox

Dr. Simon Taylor

Co-founder, Zappar

Democratising AR/VR/MR creation with ZapWorks and ZapBox

Oscar Clark

Enabling Tech Evangelist, Unity 3D

You Don't Have To Be Mad To VR/AR... But It Helps...

Noah Falstein

Chief Game Designer, Google

Game developer from 1980, ran The Inspiracy for 17 years, first elected Chairman @ IGDA, currently Google Daydream team.

VR, a new technology over 40,000 years old

David Coombes

Developer Manager, NVIDIA

High Performance VR from NVIDIA

Taylor Freeman

CEO, UploadVR

Unlocking Human Potential with Immersive Technology

Speakers

Agenda - Eastern Time

Virtual Reality is at once both cutting edge, and a descendant of humanity's most ancient arts. Google's Chief Game Designer will bring some perspective to the origins of VR, why it matters to us in terms of evolution and storytelling, and give an overview of how Google is now supporting VR with tech like Google Cardboard, Android N, Daydream VR, and Spotlight Stories.

10:40 am

11:20 am

Sean McBeth

Lead VR Eng, NotionTheory

Building Virtual Reality applications on the Web with Primrose

Primrose is a WebVR framework that lets developers create virtual reality experiences, for desktop and mobile devices alike, deployed through the Web. This talk will cover setting up a new project using the Primrose framework and building a simple application with support for both mobile VR systems like Google Cardboard and desktop systems like Oculus Rift.

Soraya Jaber & Thomas Nigro

Mixed reality: the next-next gen of computing

11:20 am

12:00 pm

Jason Jerald

Co-Founder, NextGen Interactions

VR Interactions

The most important part of VR interaction is the person doing the interacting. Human-centered interaction design focuses on the human side of communication between user and machine: the interface from the user’s perspective. Focusing on users is more important for VR than for any other medium. When VR is done well, interactions can be brilliant and pleasurable, but when done badly, they can result in frustration, fatigue, and sickness. Many causes of bad VR are centered on a lack of understanding of human perception, intuitive interaction, design principles, and real users. Quality interactions enhance user understanding of what has just occurred, what is happening, what can be done, and how to do it. For optimal VR experiences, goals and needs must be efficiently achieved, and the experiences must be engaging and enjoyable.

Marco Colombo

Software Engineer & VR Expert

VR Interactions Advice for VR Game Development and Cross Visual Platform Development

When it comes to Game Development there are lots of challenges to overcome, but when a game is made in VR there are even more things to consider. I will give you some advice, based on my experience to imprvove the performance and quality of your work.

12:00 pm

12:40 pm

Connell Gould & DR. Simon Taylor

Democratising AR/VR/MR creation with ZapWorks and ZapBox

12:40 pm

1:20 pm

Daniel Kenyon

CEO, Furious M

Global demand for Mixed Realty (VR/AR) content is about to explode. However, commercial success depends upon the ability of VR producers to understand the complexities of creating and finishing, high-quality, content and finding an audience.

The process of creating high-quality Mixed Realty (VR/AR) starts with the story — and impacts almost every single part of production, post and distribution. With so much money being invested into this medium, it’s important to be educated and understand extended architectures and platforms required for commercialization.

Olga Khylkouskaya

Senior Software Eng, CrowdOptic

BUILDING OUR OWN VIDEO DEVICE - CHALLENGES AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Raspberry Pi is a small but powerful computer. In this session you’ll learn how easy is to build a video device and what other functions it can do. Challenges to deliver first version to the customer, update process and what we achieved so far.

Yeshwanth Pulijala

Founder, Open Simulation

VR & AR applications in healthcare Dos and Don'ts

1:20 pm

2:00 pm

Japheth Dillman

CEO & CoFounder, Clevr Forevr

Funding your Indie Game startup, beating the devil

Amar Chitimalli

Founder/CEO, FaunaFace

Tools & Services for building a fun pipeline for VR|AR

This talk will cover Unity as a engine and services provided by Unity for VR|AR, we will also consider few 3rd party services and engines that help achieve some of the missing pieces for building a fun pipeline that can help developers and small studios plan to be service in the long run. Will will also deep dive into some of the games we have released and the challenges we have gone through to build a fun VR|AR game/experience.

We all know that buying a house is an emotional purchase. Facts and figures don’t sell houses. Imagination does. // A buyer walking through a home and imagining their new life there is the most powerful tool you can wield. // So how do we build virtual reality experiences that create walkthroughs that are a near perfect substitute for an in-person showing

2:40 pm

3:20 pm

Michael Rucker

Co-founder, OmniVirt

How to make VR experience for mobile

3:20 pm

4:00 pm

Terrence Masson

Founder, Building Conversation

Building an AR company from scratch

Building Conversation is a Boston based AR company that came out of Northeastern University research, the IDEA and MassChallenge accelerator programs. They raised angel investment and took advantage of the active start-up ecosystem in the area and it's massive mentor network. Talk to the company's CEO Terrence Masson about these any the many other ways a start-up can gain advantages and increase it's odds of success.

Scott Riddle & Daniel Wasser

Touching The Human Neuron: Augmented Reality Visualization of Cellular Structures Using zStack Data Sets in Clinical Research and Medical Education

High quality VR rendering is extremely performance intensive, requiring stereo rendering at 90 frames per second. In this presentation we’ll talk about GPU accelerated techniques for achieving high performance. We will talk about how these techniques can be used in Unity and Unreal Engine. We’ll also talk about video stitching and simulated audio propagation for immersive audio. Finally we’ll touch on NVIDIA’s funhouse, a game that combines VR with advanced physical simulation. Funhouse is open source so developers and modders can easily experiment with advanced rendering techniques for liquids, smoke, fire and hair in VR.

Introduction to NewtonVR: the free, cross headset, physics based interaction system

NewtonVR is a free interaction system for tracked vr controllers that works with both the Oculus SDK and SteamVR. We use it to create experiences where you feel more grounded in the world by having items interact as you would expect them to. With Physics! Gone are the days of passing your held items through walls. We'll cover getting started in VR with NewtonVR and Unity3D from ground zero, explaining the singular player rig (instead of a bunch of prefabs you have to configure individually), how Interactable Items work, and implementing them in a new project!

Robert Merki

Director of Product, cognitiveVR

Measuring Behavior in VR

Azad Balabanian

Creative Lead, UploadVR

Optimizing your VR app for Mixed Reality Videos

Join Az Balabanian, UploadVR's Creative Lead to get inside information from the creative process behind shooting trailers and videos in Mixed Reality. As had shot videos for with numerous VR companies such as Leap Motion, Google, IBM, VirZoom. For more information behind the process, visit azadux.com/mixed-reality

6:00 pm

6:40 pm

Ciaran Foley

CEO, Immersive Entertainment

The Future of Virtual: How to Maximize Engagement and Immersion in VR

A look at the implications of AR/VR/Mixed Reality as our next major computing platform. Designing for the brain (not just a technology platform) and the role of emotion. A journey of discovery and experimentation ... leading to a many layered engagement model. Future technology and where this is all going

Surya Buchwald

Director of Innovation, Helios Interactive

Intuitive Controls for VR

We'll explore the basic controls for the top 3 VR/AR platforms and examine some of the most fun and intuitive interactions that have been created to date. No prior knowledge necessary.

10:00 am

10:40 am

Oscar Clark

Enabling Tech Evangelist, Unity 3D

You Don't Have To Be Mad To VR/AR... But It Helps...

The hype and excitement around VR and AR is compelling, almost overwhelming, and as Steam and Mobile have become ever more competitive many developers are looking to the new immersive platforms as their new hope. // This is not the first time we seen the need for a leap of faith needed for new technology. From the early days of dial-up Multiplayer games to the first Java Mobile games huge advances we now take for granted required that little touch of madness that comes with innovation. // In this talk Oscar Clark, Consultant and Evangelist at Unity will look at how this VR/AR market is developing as asking if the platforms are here to stay and what qualities developers need in order to survive through the challenges of such emergent technology. Will VR/AR be just another step in a line of technology following on from Wii to Kinect to 3D TVs or is there something more profound going on? // Join this session to find out

10:40 am

11:20 am

Cristina Occhiena

Functional Analyst, Addfor

UNREAL ENGINE: A Disruptive Approach to Industrial Product Development

In the last years, the use of the most common game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity, has been explored for tasks that are beyond the typical gaming applications. // For example, the movie industries are exploring the use of the game engines to create real-time VFX and cinematic systems. On the other side some carmakers, like McLaren are using Unreal Engine in their advanced car configurators. // There are even more advanced applications as to use the game engines to produce photorealistic simulations to train the Vision Systems of the next generation. // We use Unreal Engine to produce Photorealistic Real-Time 3D Simulation for Architectural Design and Aerospace applications.// Today we will see how to get the maximum fidelity from our environments by setting the proper photometric curve (IES Light Profiles) to the light sources and to deal with the proper Color Spaces. // Moreover we will see how to import data from numerical simulations to define precise object’s trajectories. // Usually is very hard to find tutorial materials for these specific topics but those techniques are of fundamental importance when it comes to generate realistic and detailed simulations.

Tomas Mariancik

Co-founder, Solirax

How we use VR to break the laws of physics

How we're trying to rethink things for VR from scratch, instead of porting over approaches that work on a computer screen. We have a design principle, that in VR you're not limited by laws of physics

11:20 am

12:00 pm

Martin Förtsch & Thomas Endres

Avatar - Telepresence robotics with Nao, Kinect and Oculus Rift

Using humanoid robots, virtual reality glasses and 3D camera sensors you can experience the world through the eyes of a robot and control it via gestures. The hardware hacking team of TNG Technology Consulting has built a telepresence robotics system based on a Nao robot, an Oculus Rift and a Kinect One. Using these components you can realize an immersive "out-of-body experience" - similar to that of the film "Avatar". // This talk shows how easy it is to program the robot using Python or Java. We will do this by some live coding examples. Following a live demonstration of the showcase we will guide you through the complete program flow of the telepresence system. The speakers will share some insights about the challenges they faced during its implementation. The history of telepresence robotics, current trends and examples for real world fields of application will also be focused.

12:00 pm

12:40 pm

Luciana Carvalho

Chief Evange, AVR & Racefully

Immersion of the self: does VR have the power to make us care more?

Delving into work done in psychological treatment of mental health issues and empathy-building experiments.

The Reincloud platform allows you to automate the creation of 3D immersive applications and content and navigate through multiple realities, using Smart Avatars. Our own VR engine and own AR engine allow us to combine immersive media with interaction. AI + AR = UI. This talk will cover some Industry use cases, B2B robots.

1:20 pm

2:00 pm

Julian Williams

Founder, Wizdish

A real solution to navigation in virtual worlds

Much of the R&D illuminating problems and solutions for navigating in Virtual Worlds was done by NASA and DOD in the 1970s through 1990s. // This work has been added to since, but has not changed the conclusions of the earlier work. // What has changed is the number of people and demographic now exposed to virtual worlds and their demand for experiences that do not make them throw up. // We will take a look at why Sim Sickness happens. // Methods to avoid it (including the ROVR VR treadmill) and the effect these methods have on immersion. // Why there are good commercial reasons to stay seated, but better physio and neurological reasons to move around and the fact that these two worlds are converging. // Critically what does all this mean for game – content developers.

Eric Neuman

CEO, Sprawly

It's Not Black And White: How 360 Video Is Just The Beginning Of Immersive Cinema

2:00 pm

2:40 pm

Raja Bala & Cristiano Ferreira

Using the CPU to enhance immersion in VR

To get the most immersive experience in VR, it’s crucial to take full advantage of all available resources. Many games and experiences these days put a huge emphasis on GPU work and let the many cores built-in to modern mainstream CPUs sit idle on the sideline. Luckily for us, Unity has plenty of powerful features on hand that take advantage of these available resources, providing stunning visuals with minimal performance impact on the GPU. In this session, we’ll explore some of these features and how Intel partnered with a few studios to improve the immersion in their upcoming titles.

2:40 pm

3:20 pm

Max Pittsley

CEO, Freeform Labs

Maximizing performance of 3D user-generated-assets in Unity with Freeform Labs

VR matched with procedural mesh generation and manipulation can create some pretty amazing new types of interactive creativity (e.g. ElemenTerra, Tilt Brush, Oculus Medium). Learn how to make an interactive 3D drawing experience in Unity that delivers VR frame-rates even on a mobile processor. You'll utilize precise memory management, multithreading, and a few other tricks. Max Pixel has been programming games as a hobby for 13 years, studied Interactive Entertainment at USC, and is now developing on the world-building game ElemenTerra as CTO of Freeform Labs.

3:20 pm

4:00 pm

Travis Wu

Co-founder, lumièreVR

Data Driven VR Film Production

Insights to Data Driven film production in the VR/360 film segment. How to guide user attention, optimizing acting - A high level technical talk on how to shoot in VR essentially.

A look at how immersive technology is helping people to live better lives and making the world a better place.

4:40 pm

5:20 pm

Orlando Fonseca

Founder, Imgnation

How to survive the early days of VR as an indie studio

5:20 pm

6:00 pm

Patrick Catanzariti

Founder, Dev Diner

Engaging and Sharing Your VR Experience

So many developers out there don't realize how much potential they have to impact the industry as a whole. Right now. Not in a year or two. Not when they've finished a masters degree. Not when they've got a few #1 VR hits in their repertoire. Right now. Today. In this talk, PatCat, founder of Dev Diner, editor at SitePoint.com and eager emerging technology enthusiast, shares how you can (and why you should) be engaging with the VR community and sharing your VR experiences today.

Pascal Wagner

CEO, Walkthrough

How Walkthrough is creating VR content to build its business

The secret to building a successful VR company is around content creation. As hardware companies struggle to sell headsets because there is not enough content, companies that can race to provide that content will ultimately win. In this session we'll talk about how Walkthrough is positioning itself to create content for its real estate virtual reality database.

6:00 pm

6:40 pm

Sarosh Khwaja

Head of R&D, SubPac

Trent Clews-de Castella

Co-founder, Phoria

Standardising VR for Therapy

The world as we know it is changing; physical environments are manifesting into the virtual; human perceptions are being augmented through technology and multiple forms of immersive media are converging into new mediums and paradigms. Phoria is an immersive media start-up that is pioneering the next generation of virtual experiences. By leveraging NVIDIA VRWORKS, game engine technology and in-house software development, Phoria design interactive experiences that extend beyond how something looks and towards how it feels. Join Trent as he explores the evolution of immersive media. Learn how innovative tools like 3D scanning, computer vision algorithms and insanely powerful rendering hardware have helped his team build a startup that not only transforms the way people can perceive physical space online but has the ability to transform lives through engaging, immersive and awe inspiring virtual experiences.

Lachlan Sleight

CTO, Liminal VR

Recreating history in virtual reality

Much work is being done to virtually preserve historic sites using photogrammetric techniques. But what about recreating cultural sites as they once were? I'll be talking about the Melbourne Central Shot Tower Experience - where I, along with the rest of my team at Liminal 360, recreated the iconic Coops Shot Tower in VR and had it featured in a monthlong VR installation.